MLB: Howard unhappy after letting win slip away

PHILADELPHIA — Somewhere in the book of never-written but always-honored baseball rules is the one that says players should never flinch after one early-season loss, no matter how unsightly, no matter how disappointing.

Ryan Howard broke that rule Friday.

While dressing quickly and preparing to leave, the Phillies’ former MVP waited for what he would call with moderate playfulness “the circus” and turn to meet the press after a 13-4 loss to the Kansas City Royals.

He was not in a mood to clown around.

“Very, very,” he said, when asked how disappointing the loss was, particularly after the Phils had constructed a four-run lead. “We let this game just slip out of our fingers. We got out on them early, and those guys didn’t quit. They didn’t back down. And they kept swinging.”

Howard went 2-for-4 with two RBI, and was in the middle of a first-inning breeze of franchise nostalgia when he followed singles by Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley with a sharp hit to right, driving in a run. And his third-inning single plated Utley for the 4-0 lead.

But after the Phillies collected nine hits in four innings – including home runs by Domonic Brown and Erik Kratz – they would go the final five innings without one.

“We kept going out there and kept trying to swing,” Howard said. “They made the pitching change and things didn’t fall for us. And they started falling for them. Sometimes, that’s baseball – that’s kind of the hard luck of it.”

“Obviously, I guess they were pretty effective,” Howard said. “We had some small chances, I think, to try and continue to get some runs home. But when we get out to a lead, we have to be able to finish teams off. We can’t let off the gas. I don’t want to say that we let off the gas. I think those guys came back swinging. And sometimes that happens in baseball. We just got beat today.”

They have been beaten in three of their last four, winning only when Cliff Lee was able to overwhelm the Braves. That gives them 158 chances to reverse the trend – and the right to holler exactly that, in that baseball tradition.

Yet Howard was not able, nor anxious, to hide his disappointment after the Phillies fell to 0-1 at home.

“Yeah,” he said, when invited to take that option. “But it’s tough. You get out to a four-nothing start and then just let it go. Those guys didn’t give up. They kept battling and swinging away. So it’s a tough one to let go.”

With that tribute to the Royals’ continued determination, Howard left it open to interpretation that the Phillies did not. If so, however, he also stressed that they could not dwell on that.

“You can’t,” he said. “Hopefully everybody in here feels the same way I feel, that we should have had this game today and come back ready to go tomorrow.”

Even with his two hits Friday, Howard his batting .188 with no home runs during the Phils’ 1-3 start.

At the minimum, though, he is not trying to hide any struggle beneath the standard it’s-still-early cover.

“This one is kind of a tough one,” Howard said. “I know it’s early, but it’s tough. You don’t want to lose your opener like that.”